The acquisition is an exciting development for Retail Eyes, and will enable the company to focus on both sustaining growth in the UK and develop the business in European markets. The Retail Eyes’ Milton Keynes offices will become the Market Force European headquarters.

Market Force is an ideal fit for Retail Eyes, as both companies offer a similar range of customer intelligence solutions - from mystery shopping to customer satisfaction and in-store auditing, delivered on an integrated analytics platform. And equally important, the two companies share very similar visions and cultures.

As the leader in customer intelligence solutions for B2C companies in North America, Market Force has spent the last few years developing propriety technology and patent-pending analytics models that combine, analyse and present multiple customer-related data streams in a platform that makes it easy for executives to understand what has the biggest impact on customer satisfaction and bottom-line performance.

The market for those solutions is growing rapidly around the world as retailers, restaurants, and other consumer chains work to bring customers in, and make every experience, in every store, consistently great. As easy as that sounds, it’s very difficult to do with multiple locations, different cultures, and few meaningful metrics to measure the customer experience and what matters most to make them loyal. That is the promise of customer intelligence, and what both Retail Eyes and Market Force provide.

Tim Ogle, CEO of Retail Eyes says: “I am delighted that our business will become a part of Market Force. It will be the springboard for even more growth for us. We have achieved fantastic results since we launched in 2003. In the last year alone - and despite challenging economic conditions - we achieved 46 per cent growth* with a turnover of £9.6 million. Market Force’s experience and support will give us the financial and experiential resources needed to grow the business further, both here in the UK, as well as throughout Europe.”

The acquisition of Retail Eyes adds more than 100 world-class clients to Market Force’s portfolio and will double the number of mystery shoppers and retail auditors in the company’s network to over 600,000 across Europe and the Americas. The expected revenue of the expanded company is set to exceed more than $70 million (£45 million) in 2011.

Karl Maier, Market Force’s CEO, says: “We help many of the world’s leading brands to do what matters most to them -delight their customers across every store to drive growth and profitability. As the world becomes increasingly global, our customers need to drive consistent performance across every store, whether in New York, London, Toronto or Berlin. There is no question that Retail Eyes has the most sophisticated customer intelligence business in the UK, with a rapidly growing European practice. This acquisition will enable us to serve our multi-national clients, as well as extend our services to new markets that have huge potential for growth.”

Tim Ogle concludes: “The market for customer intelligence solutions is just beginning to explode in the UK and Europe, and we want to be at the forefront. We already have some of the most highly valued brands in the UK as clients. They appreciate how getting the customer experience right with every visit drives their success. The scale, product range and analytics that Market Force offers, in combination with our UK and European expertise, makes us a formidable force together in an expanding international market.”